i8 ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL LABOURER. 



Sometimes grass land was granted for a cow in place of allot- 

 ments. The old custom of hiring farm servants by the year 

 was still fairly general, and as in the other northern counties 

 the farm workers were more particular about keeping their 

 children at school and there was little evidence of the 

 prevalence of the gang system. 



In Derbyshire a labourer earned on the average 155. a 

 week. Hired servants received 14 to 18 a year. The 

 Dorset labourer engaged himself, like the Northumbrian 

 labourer, for a year, receiving part of his income in kind ; 

 but unlike the Northumbrian hind he was driven to sell 

 the labour of his family, as well as his own, at a very low 

 price. In Dorset wages were 8s. with, and 95. without a 

 cottage. Married men had besides certain privileges, or 

 perquisites. Sometimes these privileges consisted simply 

 of cider or beer, sometimes of a potato patch ploughed and 

 manured, or of fuel or a certain amount of wheat at or under 

 the market price. But no farmer gave all these privileges 

 together, and the goods when supplied were often so bad 

 that even when allowed on a market price they were paid 

 for at their full value. Deductions made for payments in 

 kind were so great that the labourer often had not a shilling 

 left after his week's work. Besides this, the employers seem 

 to have exercised a cruel mastery over labour, in claiming 

 the labour of sometimes the entire family at a very low 

 wage, and if the older boys left their employers in disgust, 

 their fathers would be given notice on the ground that the 

 family was not large enough to do the work. In spite of 

 the labourer being hired by the year he was paid nothing 

 in times of illness. A man's wages, including additions 

 from all sources, and if he was fortunate enough never to be 

 ill, would be from los. to us. ; his grown-up sons received 

 a few shillings less, and the women who worked on the land 

 received either 6d. or 8d. a day ; but if the larger sum was 

 munificently awarded, then the man would have to take 

 less in allowances. Children were often forced to work with 

 their fathers at six years old, or even younger. Without 

 the patch of potato ground or the allotment the Commis- 

 isoner failed to see how the family could earn sufficient to 



